Found You
by Albel The Twisted
Summary: SPAZTARD ERRORS FIXED. Reuploaded. Even though Kakashi has a whole canine unit, can he resist taking in Team 7's black cat off his rainy doorstep?


A/N: This is a one-shot. I'm sick of how I never finish on-going things. I'm going to leave it hanging open at the end, but I'll definitely need reviews if you guys want more. Though, more means smut. So. Those of you reading this on ff-dot-net will just have to go to aff.

Note: I'm giving Kakashi a blue eye, as I'm sure it was artistic convenience that gave him a black one. And it's just so nice. Deal.

Warm. ...Fuzzy. Damn-near-incest. Something about twelve-year-olds just... bothers me. Maybe it's because twelve isn't legal even in Japan.

I'll most likely add other chapters - but they won't be per say a continuation. Just different parodies of popping Sasuke's angsting cherry. D X33 X33! X33 Humping successful!

WARNING: Potential spoilers. If you do not keep up with the Japanese releases - as some people have to be decent and not read/watch for free what will be crappily released on recycled paper and crappily-dubbed carbon at ten times the value (well, Naruto's priceless so that's a lie) - then yes, a lot of this will sound either out of place or exposing.

Copyright: Don't own it. Wouldn't make fan fiction of it if I did.

PAIRING: K/S. Not KxS, as there is no sexual contact. Just perverse allusions, because I'm a sucker for student/teacher things. This'll teach me to not trust ff to just -work- before I go to bed.

THANK YOU. Amanda. For bringing bullshit to my attention. Apparently it has extreme trouble uploading txt files. I had to Select All, Copy&Paste. Good jeebus.

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** "Found You."**

It was easy to explain the storm had knocked out his hot water. Even easier to get past the doorway when he was soaked through with duffel slung on his arm and a miserable, pale-faced pout sticking out between wings of black stuck to his face.

It wasn't easy finding his damned sensei's place.

Back during one of their very first days of training, Sakura had asked where they could find him if they ever needed to get a hold of him.

In that lazy, stupid voice of his, Kakashi was smiling from the crescent of his eye with his answer: "It's not exactly finding if I tell you where it is. Part of your training."

His half-assed excuse, just like he had for everything.

Not that Uchiha Sasuke ever minded a challenge. Following their sensei home after training was impossible with his body-flicker, and scoping out haunts for his groceries or even the jounin inventory buildings was ultimately futile. Spending the night was going to be awkward if there was no food in the fridge and no kunai under the pillow.

As soon as he knocked he let the rest of the world sink in. The sun had set and let humid twilight plague the streets, but clouds had swarmed the usually clear skies with the expected spring rains and soon the degrees dropped. Now the temperature had plummeted, stomped in to the muddy grounds and himself left battle-weary from the army of wet needles that had attacked him on the way over. It didn't need to be stealthy when it had pure numbers, and even he couldn't dodge.

Back when it had only been drizzle - he'd tried.

Kakashi's neighbors were relatively silent behind their own doors on the street, he noticed. Perhaps there was a benefit to living in a shabbier district; it was susceptible, but you weren't a quarter-mile from the nearest soul. When a person had an entire district to themselves, they noticed just how... alone they were. Water seeping down his legs trickled out through the toes of his sandals as per their design and had made an adequate puddle on the barren stoop protected by the chimeless overhang, afraid to leak out past the borders of his own shadow. He had made sure to come by earlier in the evening, when people actually -took- showers.

Two minutes ticked by according to the precise mental clock in his head and each new passing second was etching agitation deeper and deeper in to--

Click. A whine from the door as it slid open (no doubt not a lack of care so much as a signal to a sleeping nin of invasion -- when the door was I>unlocked /I>), revealing slanted silver fluff and a dazed, scriptless icy eye. The other lid scarred and drawn shut without his protector. Assuming the man was surprised would be too much, and Sasuke had learned boasting about how great he was got him sat on. Or neck deep in earth. Fingers tightened about the strap on his shoulder as he swallowed the thorny bitterness swelling his tongue.

The man could only swear his genin licked a toad from his expression. "Sasuke-kun...?" A brow lifted, but it didn't take the weight of his sleepy lid off the glacial pool watching him.

At last he could smirk, features handsome beyond his age tossed in to confliction with its petulance. That suited his tone just fine, laced with all the arrogance of youth. "Found you."

There was a moment's pause from the jounin, as though piecing together what little a hint the boy had given him. Until he was smiling in that eye of his, the mask washing out everything else Sasuke was diligently attempting to study.

It was a mixed praise, some hint of amused mockery in his voice. "I was hiding?" To him it looked like he'd been waiting out the rain with another chapter of Icha Icha and a cup of cocoa when he'd heard the knock.

"Feh." He'd take it for what it was. He didn't -need- to hear how great he was. Though, it was always an added bonus. Something he had grown up driving to make his norm, and now that it was he never grew tired of it. Even if 'better than everyone else' didn't quite equal 'better than _him_'. Onyx pulled shut with the dismissive tilt of his head, the usual scatter of satin feathers cancelled by the wet clinging to cold-pale cheeks. "The storm knocked out my water heater."

"Is that so...?" Kakashi had yet to step out from the crag he had made in his entryway. Rather, he got comfortable and sank himself against the framing, the last half of an arm and his head the most to stick through the opening.

His face souring, Sasuke could still picture how the rest of him must seem. No doubt plodding about in his sandals and in navy uniform with his jacket put away, observing the distinct lack of olive at a visible torso. Were he still owning pride for his Konoha heritage he would never have worn anything else, either. A small part of him was thankful even his brother could never make it to jounin on skill alone.

It wouldn't do to bear needless disgust for a man he had to regularly cooperate with. A mental hash mark said he would never be that tall. It just wasn't in his family. Perfect ninjas didn't have to be tall anyway, smirking to abate himself despite how much he wanted to knock out the man's shins.

"...Yeah. I didn't get the chance to shower." Their sensei was always more clever than he let on, but exactly how far ahead that frosty eye was on the track he didn't know.

"That's a shame." It was very far, judging from how hard he was willing to yank the boy's leg about this. "You came all the way over here just to tell me that...?" Or... not.

By all means, he was willing to let the boy in and use his facilities. The Uchiha was useless if he fell ill with his own ego and the rain. Heaven forbid the boy learn to _ask_ for what he wanted, though. Compromising with Naruto was impossible unless they were both in the same fix, and Sakura rolled over at every opportunity. ...Why Sasuke hadn't taken advantage of that his perverse mind could only dream of.

Holding down the want to just reach out and smack his teacher meant knuckles turned even whiter around the strap of his shouldered pack.

"They wouldn't like you so much if you'd stop looking so adorable." His expression didn't shift even when Sasuke balked and mentally climbed out of the pile of his thought-toppled self. That scowl only increased to his sensei. A hand looming even with his own silver head stirred to point at the face sitting in a field of soaked raven hair. "Like that. Girls like cute things."

"I'm going to catch a cold out here, Kakashi," the boy growled while he made the effort of scolding his features back in to dismissive normalcy. Back to the porcelain mask every girl in class had wanted to break with a smile. Once more proving Kakashi wasn't his 'sensei' as he was with the other two teammates. This man was one he had to surpass to get that much closer to his goals.

A measurement of his capacity. That was all.

Deep down, it wasn't a smile he really wanted out of the Uchiha. Just something other than that 'fuck-you' pout he gave everyone. "Why would you want to catch one of those?" Another yank. Besides, if he didn't start lightening up soon, that genetic frown every male in that family seemed to have would snare him. Kakashi had only seen a handful of faces that should never frown so much.

Fewer that did something about it. They usually ended up dying.

Sasuke was still a twelve-year-old boy, no matter how much he tried to be otherwise. Some things simply took -time-, and he would have to learn to accept that. Experience took time. ...Like hell. If he were a black cat he would be hackling with having his tail pulled so much.

...An Uchiha with cat ears didn't exactly help the man's mentality. Cogs beyond the powdery pile of hair, weightless without his interference, worked overtime. New, Neko-Uchihas. 900 coins, limited time offer! Stroke them to purr, feed them angst! Get them a leash and show them to all your friends...!

Time had frozen, and it was a moment like this Kakashi didn't particularly care for the fact his student had such potential. Sasuke was disgustingly patient, and hadn't budged or said a thing while the jounin's mind had ridden its carousel. Had detected his spacing out - spacier than usual - and waited for his return to reality. Standing there with no sense of time, looking more cow-eyed than normal.

"Stop acting so stupid," he huffed, not hiding his annoyance. That was an Uchiha for you. So determined to prove how mature he was, and intolerable of anything less.

Well, he could still dream about cat-eared, tail-flicking, leashed SukeNekos lapping cream from his hands. A nice dream indeed. Everyone had to have one. "I didn't know I was a thespian," the older man drawled, knowing his voice was never offensive, but what he'd said on it grated on his genin's senses worse than any nails on any chalkboard. Any knife on plate.

Any cat on the clothesline. He'd always been a dog-lover, but damn if he couldn't make exceptions... A stray was a stray, after all. To go picking and choosing which he let through his door would just be cruel.

This cat was going to ask to come in. Or groom itself on his doorstep. Whichever.

"Then why not go over to Naruto's...?" Exhaust all options and eventually corner the boy in to confession. But he was anticipated.

"He lives on the other side of town." A humph and his fist finally stopped strangling the pack, all so he could cross arms over the shirt sticking to his chest.

A trained jounin eye detected the early signs of a head cold, watching the way water jumped in escaping the weaves every time there was the slightest movement. Sasuke didn't waste movement.

He was shivering.

"Like he'd let me anyway."

"If you asked nicely enough," Kakashi pointed out, just to watch the way every detectable fiber in his prideful being twitched. "That's what teamwork is about. Looking out for each other."

The perfect counter drifted out of him with frigid coal eyes rolling up to him. "And not killing them with all the krud on their floor."

"A good ninja wouldn't use the floor. They could walk on the ceiling to get where they're going." All of it carried out with the formality Hatake Kakashi afforded his youthful team whenever he was instructing them out of their own stupidity. Or arrogance. Whichever ended up blinding them first.

It was beginning to stick out in the genin's mind he was not getting in to this apartment without giving something up. Something he clung to rather dearly. More so than the family crest grappled desperately to his small back. He really didn't feel like going through a round of training right now. This had to end fast. "...I'll be sick before I get there."

There was only that cryptic eye-closed smile granted to him. "Then I'd get there before your cold does. It's going to end up catching you at this rate."

Moments like these it exhausted him that this man was their teacher. Always teaching and performing elegant distractions. He would just have to step up the pace, and dance circles around him.

"Don't you want to know how I found your place?"

It always was fun to push his student to new levels. So very much like himself, they could go at this for hours. But he leaned off the door frame and pulled back the door a couple of inches, towering over the boy who smirking with his evident success.

"...Not really." He waited for the face-fault, that small tick of self-berating tendency always leaking in to the boy's face when he got ahead of himself, celebrated victory too soon. "All that matters is you did."

Shoulders in rain-drenched Uchiha blue sank. So close... Just accept the lesson of the day and be done with it. Though it did pang a tad in his gut whenever he saw that violent pride was defeated, Sasuke had to tame it if he ever hoped to grasp his true potential. He had to get over himself. And as his teacher, Kakashi was determined to help him. Had to teach him that he could indeed depend on others.

Though, that ego had to have been dragged through the mud just getting here. Even riddled with sweat, dirt, and bruises from Naruto's sloppy taijutsu had he never recalled the rooster tail so docile; it always had a tendency to rebel just like the youth that had become the wild bird's nesting place, and now it was matted to the Uchiha's skull and made him look... pathetic and susceptible. And glittered at every tiny convulsion of heat falling away.

He made out a grumble from the inky leech of hair sucking on the boy's dropped head. "...Whaddo I have to say." In concession he still made demands.

"I didn't quite hear that? Stop talking with rocks in your mouth."

"What do I have to say!" tore through the hallway, an ivory jaw tightly wound to fight back the clatter of his teeth as he glared up to his sensei.

Who still stood there unimpressed. Simply waited while the little heat that was left in his pupil's wet form crowded in to his face, turning ears a mild shade of pink with his humility.

That's right... White cats did have pink ears. And strawberry milk noses and just the cutest springtime pastel rose comprising cold-twitched lips... What? Full-grown men couldn't like cute things too?

Now that he had the boy's full attention and humbled silence he could enforce the situation. A gloved hand rested on the wood of the frame as he leaned out to let his head teeter over the other, still a navy and white dripping pile on his doorstep. A doorstep with no welcome mat or knocker decor.

"...You have to say please, Sasuke." Irritation at this vibrated in the air as his response. "I don't have to let you in." A reminder that stilled the humid silence, but to balance the fury standing on his doorstep he could hear thunder in the distance. When he didn't detect anything else he righted himself. Oh, he could wait out here all night.

Not that he'd like to. His cocoa was getting cold. And his Icha Icha was going unread - a thing both the novel and reader considered vastly unjust. Just to cater to a flame that burned so hot it warded off anyone from getting close to it anyway. It was getting less and less worth it to have gotten up and answered the door.

"You could always go to Sakura-chan's," he pointed out lamely, reminding the boy of his horrible options as he glommed his own chin. "I'm sure--" A brow kicked up when he saw how nonplussed the raven haired boy had become. He could remember being that age, and being cooed and waved at by herds of kunoichi wanting to get his mask off. The smallest sigh.

He knew where this was going. His student was trying to confide in him about... who knew what, and here he was trying to get him to say 'please'. -That- Uchiha clan had to be the only bane of his existence, always driving him to such petulant behavior.

And here he thought he'd outgrown this...

The door clapped shut and Sasuke jumped, his head popping up from studying the blue topaz gleam in his own plastered shirt. A moment later the door swung open and Kakashi was holding out a bucket. Sasuke could only glare at it for a long while.

"Empty your pockets. The dryer's not very forgiving." His other hand was offered out for the duffel his student had brought, which Sasuke handed over without a word. It wasn't every day the prodigy wanted something from someone - much less a man that almost made it his duty to humiliate him. To turn him away would only destroy what little trust the Uchiha heir was attempting to place in him.

But... damn. He didn't know even jounins that came this prepared. Past an Uchiha-fan keychain and exploding tags sticking out of his wallet, his equipment pouch, and a bag of ginger sweets that had surfaced out of his shorts... Kakashi was just learning why the clan had made it their uniform to have such shirts. They were riddled with pockets on the inside, and were the man more inclined to think Sasuke was molesting himself (which wasn't a half-bad idea), he would have overlooked the pouch of glass dust, scorch balm, messenger scrolls, assorted shuriken, and body tape that had all but appeared in the student's knowing and divesting hands.

Four sweatdrops and a bucket sinking to the man's knees later a brow hiked. He could have asked. He didn't. Instead he waited while Sasuke peeled himself out of the emptied cargo shirt and dump it in to the bucket with his things. The shorts were something he was a bit more apprehensive about, as could be told by the fact he ignored them and moved on to getting out of his sandals. It was only after his sensei was holding out an oversized towel which he wrapped about his middle that he stepped out of the shorts soaked grey with rain water.

It didn't take two eyes to take in the twelve-year-old on his doorstep. For years he'd been expecting to meet up with the last Uchiha of Konoha, and it was almost destiny that Sasuke had been assigned under him. Only a Sharingan and most patient jounin tactician had a chance of reigning in both the Kyuubi, and an Avenger. Two monsters currently at each other's throats - making up for all of their good teamwork in the Wave.

Sandals shuffled aside and Kakashi started back in to the small apartment to get everything in order. Sasuke loomed in the doorway a long moment, looking to soggy sandals he had set just inside the door before spotting the shoe tower beside the bottom of the stairs. Holding them to himself by one hand and suspending the towel on his hips with the other he shuffled to the shoe storage and put them on top to ensure they aired out. In this humidity it wasn't likely, though.

It was such a... modest place. Cramped, even. Upstairs had to be the bedrooms, since he only saw the door to a closet under the stairs. Beyond, Kakashi milled about in the tiny kitchen conjoining what had to be the living room. It wasn't that Sasuke had been expecting a mansion. He just... hadn't expected the place to be so devoid of personality.

Well. What better opportunity than now to learn about his 'enemy' in his natural environment. Surely their teacher had to be something else on his own time. Chilled fingers circled the handrail, silently working at scurrying his way up to no avail at the first wooden squeak under his toes.

Cringe. Not even up the first step. Owlish black eyes fled down the narrow hall, and when no silver bush came along, he hurried up the flight.

The small corridor at the top led to the bathroom, but directly there was the heart of enemy territory. It was only now that the genin realized he should probably be sneaking. Surely there was a line to a person's hospitality.

Sasuke had usually figured that line stopped before one was forced to strip on a doorstep. After that, everything was fair. Digits ghosted over the knob, the lightest push widening the crack of the doorway enough for him to slip in.

Yep. This was the bedroom. Just off his left shoulder led to the closet, at his ankle a short bookshelf and another at the side of the desk across the way.

Sweatdrop. Bare feet padded across the rugged wood until he was at the shuriken bedspread, staring past his ghost white reflection in the glass. Expertly ignoring the open book and the rumple in the spreading that said he had interrupted a lounging session. Now he didn't mind being forced to wait the couple of minutes from his knocking.

Exactly what would he have seen...? While his mind drifted on that tangent, expression flattened with thought and his eyes getting further away to grasp the mental picture, he nearly jumped out of his skin when a white canvas landed over him. Scrambling with a flailing hand in the air he only felt hands firmly grasp his head and...

...Work at drying the mat of his hair. The second he could peer out of the towel he was hissing and using the reflection to glare at the man. Whom only continued with a bit more care as ebon fluff came closer to a dry state of rest, glacial slate gaze diligent on his task instead of heeding his student. Being scrubbed out like a storm drain-dwelling cat just glad to be under a roof.

Insensitive weather and such a considerate - though invasive gesture conflicted with him. Sasuke couldn't much help it if he didn't like being touched. What he enjoyed even less was the fact his sensei knew that and persisted anyway. Making it out to be so casual and second nature, and expecting the boy to simply accept it. The fist at his hip tightened about the bunch of damp cotton.

This was something mothers did for their sons. Imposing himself in such a role was unforgivable. And... puzzled him. Why was it everyone that meant the least to him did the most...? His mental tension left him startled when the gesture stopped, no doubt because the jounin had sensed his unease. Black eyes picked up to the dull glow of a body in the window above his own.

"You're not an Uchiha."

What little was visible of Kakashi's expression turned grave. So that's what he had come here for. "I'm not," he agreed heavily, quiet despite the mass in his words.

His eye was fixed on the way cotton towel almost blended in to the plains of tightly bundled sinew and marble stretched too thin too young with all of the boy's work. He couldn't see them, hairline scars and tears from Naruto's abandon for combat etiquette. Or the punctures from Haku's needles that no doubt left a far more permanent impression in Sasuke's mind sooner than on his flesh. No matter the prowess his pupil had for learning the ways of combat, he was still too small a container for the writhing and insatiable Avenger dwelling at his belly's Coil.

Kakashi could detect every miniscule shiver and tremble that didn't come from the sapping power of the rain. That beast had wound itself higher and was squeezing itself about his heart, growing defensive. Muttering small and venomous soothing to all the lacerations of Sasuke's shaken and tattered being. It really was a monster to rival the tailed demons. It gave even the Kyuubi trouble at times. "You stole it," hissed painfully in the air.

"It was a gift," the man corrected evenly, hands stilling in their task atop ebon strand. Like Sasuke would believe it. Though, he had no reason to lie. Instead, Kakashi waited with his seemingly boundless patience, not removing his hands since the boy made no effort to swat them off.

Not immediately anyway. When he did at last, Sasuke both spun on a heel and threw the full brunt of his palm out for the jounin's middle with a yell of, "That's such crap!"

It wasn't any true wonder that a hand closed tightly around the taijutsu advance. There were times it was appropriate to humiliate a person and perform some twirl and then let the other person have ten seconds to realize they'd been thefted of their towel.

This wasn't the time, an icy blue orb taking in the fact the genin made no effort to rip himself free. Rather, he was leaning in to the grasp in the off chance it was the only thing keeping him upright.

Perhaps because he was too racked with his own nerves to do much more than glare at the plant on the window. The Uchihas were not a patient clan, and the inheritor of their name was no exception. For someone to give him the actual time he needed was... foreign. At home, it had always been that he was being pushed, either by himself or by his father and brother. Now, he was being neither yanked nor shoved.

Well, yanked. But to be embraced, not for ambition or the forceful extraction of potential. Navy arms closed around him and all Sasuke could distinguish was the heartbeat his ear was crammed against, and the distinct smell of Kakashi that reminded him of freshly baked dangos. ...And cocoa, for some reason. It made his own chest, and legs, heavy. Arms about him kept fast, assuring him his head wouldn't be hitting the floor any time soon.

"I guess families like yours didn't hug much." No answer was all he needed to confirm it. Pulling his gaze down from the window revealed one of the few times his prodigal pupil didn't... know what to do with himself.

Uchihas didn't get lost. Oh sure, they wandered aimlessly or never used maps - but they had a pension for knowing exactly where they were at all times. To think, such a simple thing could offset him so much. ...Not so surprising. But, not born in to the same prestige and tradition as 'Uchiha', he still knew what a hug was like and the loads it could do for a person.

It fell against his chest more than fluttered up to his ears, Sasuke's murmur. "You don't know anything..."

"And that's why I'm the teacher while you're the student," he retorted guilelessly, his eye pulling shut when the boy retreated further in to himself. Mostly because Kakashi was in no mood to let him go, lest his Icha Icha library be taken hostage at wet towel-snap. No, he certainly couldn't have that happen.

Blinking when the weight jumped and squeaked, a baffled stare downward demanded explanation from a face that hadn't lifted from his shirt. If he didn't know better, he could swear Sasuke was burrowing in to place.

He chuckled and the Uchiha lump shifted. "Bless you."

"Mm."

"What did I say about manners?" That tone could imply even he didn't remember.

Another shift, then a sigh heated in to the jounin's breast, constricting on the muscle beyond that truly did yearn to reach out for him. "...Thanks."

As tender as the moment was, it had to end. There were two routes he could do this, and one most certainly was more dangerous than the other. Retracting his arms, Kakashi slid a hand to the back of Sasuke's neck and proceeded to forcibly escort him to the stairwell. Being dragged along by the scruff like some cat wasn't exactly what the genin had in mind, displaced and scowling as he jaggedly toddled down the steps in the lead. Kakashi, however, had exactly that in mind. Could he help it?

Black eyes narrowed, and he would defend it was from being directed when he could easily walk himself, and not from the fact the hug had ended. However, they were once again wide with wonder when he was staring at a pot on the stove.

"Menthol?" The silver Chidori-shocked animal sitting on Kakashi's head bobbed with a crescent-eyed nod. "Gak!"

He was bent over by the hold on his neck to loom his toweled head over the steaming pot, unable to help but take in a deep breath that pierced in to lungs. He hadn't even noticed they were growing thick until now. It was also to calm him from the man diligently standing behind him to make sure he didn't squirm away from the treatment. Grudgingly hands settled on to the edge of the stovetop, fighting down the need to revolt simply because he was being confined.

Minutes he swore passed in absolute silence, save when the genin would fidget. There was never a time he had minded such a thing, but there had never been a time he'd had someone standing right behind him.

It was the same uneasiness that could happen when someone was standing behind you while you were at the urinals. He didn't like it. Didn't like how he had to accommodate himself with feet spreading to keep his bearings.

Or how his sensei stepped in to place and Sasuke could feel warmth lining his towel-clad rear. He bolted clean upright -- as far as the hand would let him.

This wasn't fair. He snarled when a warm digit came in contact with his frozen spine, trickling the few inches and made a tug at the tight closure of the towel. Without the one clamped to his neck keeping vapors from being wasted on the air around him, he would have had a harder time turning red as he did.

"So are those boxers or briefs...?" A chuckle sounding from behind him made him want to crawl in a hole and die. "Oh? Briefs? Aren't you secure." He could only feel the heat ringing in his ears, hoping it might even scald the hold on his neck if it reached that far.

"That's the idea..." This had to be far stranger than getting a dobe thrown in to lip-lock with you. There wouldn't be any consolation fruit baskets. Somehow no one knowing about it made it ten times worse and his belly constricted at the idea.

Their sensei was a reckless pervert.

It was never clear which kind of pervert.

The finger in his towel retracted and the presence on his neck slid away so the boy could right himself.

After that embarrassing incident, Sasuke was finally allowed to shower the weather off of himself. By then, slinking out of the compact bathroom that still managed to have a scarecrow-print scroll meant that his clothes were dry and waiting for him. It also meant that his sensei had procured something for him to sleep on.

So it was easy to understand the boy's confusion when he found that man sprawled out on a sheet and using Sasuke's vulnerable duffel bag for a pillow on the middle of his living room tatami.

Sigh.

"I can sleep on the floor," he offered humbly, shoulders disappearing in a slouch of black Uchiha-tee as hands defaulted in to sweat pockets.

"You're the guest." A page flicked by in practiced hands. "I like it down here, anyway." The arm went back to supporting the back of the shinobi's own head as he continued to read.

Sasuke managed to pout angrily at the treatment of his bag, stepping over to nudge at it with his foot.

"Yeh!"

"You'd be surprised how far you can get, asking for things," his teacher drawled, not quite willing to let go of the ankle he had caught just yet.

Not until he heard the connection of twelve-year-old ass with the floor from the loss of balance. Then he let go. He didn't even have to look when he heard the pissy click of Sasuke's tongue.

For all he cared, if Kakashi wanted it so bad he could keep it. There wasn't anything important in there anyway. That's how he reasoned out his losses as legs folded, glaring to the obscene little red book and its even more obscene huge scarlet '18+' no-stamp.

So the pair of them partook in silence a while. Silence, for all but the occasional rustle of turning paper or the stir of shoulders in their tee.

By the time he spoke, Sasuke had crammed himself on the wall, one arm slung over a raised knee as he observed balefully. Plotting. Calculating.

...Noticing how just about every fourth page Kakashi's unmasked cheekbones flared. Only to jump and shoulders tighten when the voice drifted up casually.

"It's not really a sleepover if you don't sleep." Another page turned.

"...You don't have a TV."

"Nothing on worth watching."

That he couldn't read in those dirty books, Sasuke guessed. ...Well, that stab at conversation died. Fingers curled in the bunch of fabric under his risen knee.

"I changed the sheets Tuesday. They're clean. It's a good pillow."

"Then you use it," the Uchiha heir snapped, eyes narrowing in the fall of midnight strand.

That distant eye of his mentor slid over, briefly considering him before once more deciding the book was more important. "I'm comfortable right here. You'll hurt your back if you sleep there."

"That's the fifth scene like that you've crossed."

Putting the book down would make him look guilty. Ignoring Sasuke's attempt to make him look guilty was simply unwise. "Is that so...?" Neither confirm nor deny. Perfect.

Knuckles paled briefly, releasing a snort at being pre-empted. Inky gaze fixated on the table turned against the wall. "...Is that book more important than us?"

"More interesting," Kakashi corrected dully, another page turning. "You're not much to look at when you're just sitting there."

Sasuke wasn't sure exactly why, but he found himself blushing angrily at that statement. Caught, the pink reached the tips of his ears when he heard his sensei chuckle.

"Hm..? Oh, sorry. The main character just said something funny."

There was a sigh, skull thumping the wall as the genin leaned his head back to divert his unwanted temper elsewhere.

Before he knew it he tried to explode backwards in to the wall to catch up with his heart when legs slid in between his own. It wasn't even the fact that his teacher's stupid masked face was hanging over him, or that he realized he must look like a panicking deer with eyes so wide. It was the fact Sasuke was startled at himself for how relaxed he had gotten.

Relaxed enough that he now had a goofy jounin perched on his heels between agape thighs, and all Kakashi did was stare down to him with a harsh scrutiny. It was times like this that made the genin want to curl up, or shove him away. Neither happened, lest he prove his discomfort. He kept fingers gnarled in the bunch of fabric under his own knee, hardening pale features in to his most esteemed scowl, aligning it with the pallid ocular across him.

He understood that look. Kakashi had finally lost patience with him. Or had at least hit a point in his book that could wait until he had the Uchiha's true intentions out in the open.

Sasuke worked to keep his voice even, refusing to be put-off by the brush of a foreign knee on the bare back of his hand. Or just how stupid that hair looked. "You could have told me you had a Sharingan."

"You didn't ask. It didn't seem important at the time." He had no reason to be put off or disturbed about the conversation. On the contrary, since he had gotten wind of the Hokage's designation of his team he had been anticipating it.

That didn't mean he had looked forward to it, by how heavy the knot between silver eyebrows was.

How collected he was only infuriated the genin further, teeth giving an edge to his voice. "You're a thief!"

"It was a gift," calmly drifted from him, but he was sounding in less of a stupor than usual. This was getting troublesome.

It toppled from him before he could stop himself, snarling as his head fell from the weight of his anger. "You're lying!" The implications of such an accusation only dawned on him after the fact, hair-masked coals igniting while he observed the juncture of jounin heels and genin knees, and the hanging red book that made up their position.

"Oh...?" Kakashi wasn't mad with him. Or disappointed. But he wasn't puzzled, either. This was something his student was going to have to grow out of, if he hoped to get over himself. As his teacher, he was obligated to help him. "You can prove it...?"

Furious silence was the only thing to buzz in his ears for a short while, watching his pupil tremble and seethe until he seeth'd himself out and buckled wearily. Fingers abandoned their death grip on his own pant leg, still taking deep breaths to regain himself.

He could slap himself. Really. Or have Naruto slap him. He was acting so... childish. Had been ready to bite his tongue, or hold his breath, or scream till he was blue in the face towards Kakashi's crimes.

Such a simple question made him face that there wasn't any crime. "...You were with ANBU, before, right...?"

Technically, Sasuke was asking. Dumping his cheek in the only other available palm he humm'd out an affirmation.

"...Did you ever..."

"I've done a lot of things. You'll have to pick one." Though he already knew where this topic was going to end up.

"...have any missions, with him..." the younger ended feebly, lamplight playing off the feathery mess at the shift of his head as he lamely looked elsewhere. All night, all before now, he had wanted to ask. Now that he had, the whole endeavor sounded more laughable as each second of lacking response from the one above him passed by.

When Kakashi did at last answer, small shoulders knotted meekly. "No. I didn't." The weight of the answer he was sure settled heavily, from the way Sasuke slumped hopelessly. "..I was ANBU while Uchiha-san was being congratulated for having another son."

Dark head lifted, astonishment lighting inky disks when only a closed smile greeted him.

"He said that Sasuke meant for a good shinobi. It was better than Nitachi," he finished with a chuckle, a heavy hand finding perch on a stunned genin's skull. "Your mother didn't smirk, though."

An indignant humph made his eye fall open, observing how his student looked away. ...Bashfully.

"...I smile..."

"Oh?"

The inquiry only made him lower his head to conjoin chin and shoulder further, nose wrinkling in annoyance. "The rest of you are too busy being in your own stupid little world to notice." This was exactly what made him smile on their forced luncheons he neglected to add.

"I see. You call that smiling? Hum... Still looks like a smirk to me." Thinking back on it made him lift the hand from the guffawing Sasuke's head to hold his own chin. Then nod. "But if that's what you want to call it."

"S...shut up," he grumbled, blush prickling well down his neck. "I'm not gonna split my face doing it like that usuratonkachi."

"He knows how to ask. I wonder who the real dumbass is?" Or Iruka was lying to him about what always resulted in spontaneous ramen-dealings. Maybe loudmouthed and hysterical begging didn't really count as asking. Certainly, he wasn't expecting that much out of the Uchiha.

No response led the man to sigh, head tilting in the direction of his hair woefully. Enough teaching for one night, he supposed. Clipping the book shut and flinging it expertly over his shoulder to land on his sheets jumped the student from his personal and newly-shy world, lifting his head with recently discovered patience for a man he couldn't yet defeat.

A man that had more expression with one eye than Sasuke could often amass in his entire face. And more skeletons in his closet than...

Well...

...That vulgar a comparison could make an Avenger die a little inside.

To put it simply: Sasuke had a whole graveyard.

"You're not falling asleep there."

"And why not?" he retorted, rebellion sparking in him instantly and developing a challenging glare to accompany it.

"Because I said so. Unless you can explain to me what's so bad about my bed?"

"...It's tainted." It had sounded far more valid in his head. He doubted it suddenly when there was a quizzical icy eye on him. With a twitch Sasuke looked away again. "You read your books there."

"...I left my cocoa up there," the jounin realized with a lazy blink. A topic quickly dismissed with a flit of his hand that quickly settled against his cheek once more. "What's so bad about my books, hm...?"

When there was no response save his student's eyes on the floor he afforded a light chuckle and smiled his eye shut.

"Then, let's get you to bed."

Lost seal-black eyes floated up to him just before they shrank with an... un-Uchiha squeak. It made them both pause to stare at each other, Sasuke rigid against the wall and Kakashi with elbows under his genin's knees. A lone powdery blue eye went down to the batch of white knuckles in his shirt, then back up to thorny coals ready to explode with burrs like an Uchiha shrapnel bomb.

"What... _was_ that?"

From the affronted expression riding his face, even Sasuke was attempting to decipher what he had just done. The lack of an answer made him scowl and bite the inside of his cheek with a noseborn humph.

The older realized, smiling with a knowledgeable, "Ah." And then resumed the task of getting spindly, young legs off the floor and a pre-teen rump on to his kneeling lap.

"What are you...!" Snowy, heart-shaped face was buried in to a navy shoulder with a grip in the back of ebon crown. He felt inadequate, and shamed with his childishness at the affirming arm about his waist and hugging the Uchiha heir against a steady, unrushed heartbeat.

Another long, awkward silence as Kakashi held him there, waiting for his student's temper to ebb and receive muscles laxing and limbs closing against him. Knuckles eased, and the other arm hung over the one on his middle. Knees squeezed at the jounin's ribs, who was working to not let his blush become evident to a child that couldn't even see it.

Never take chances. Especially not with one's own students. This was his first team. His first real team that he believed in. He wouldn't compromise that by picking grotesque favorites. For all he knew, it could become a habit.

He didn't need to explain before the Hokage exactly why he was putting himself in to a volatile twelve-year-old. Business and pleasure. Something about not mixing them.

But his team couldn't be just business, could they? A man wouldn't die for his flower shop - no matter what Yamanaka-san thought.

Fingers sought out his answers in more of the sapphire feathers, memorizing their texture for as long as Sasuke would let him. Which wasn't very. Eventually the runty Uchiha did begin to fidget, and made the attempt to worm out of the hold.

He stopped once his feet lost purchase with the floor then immediately gnarled around the first waist he could find.

Sure, it appeared to be so easy for Sasuke to proclaim his wrath and swear to ameliorate the tragedy of his clan.

It seemed to Kakashi however, that deep down, his Top Rookie still wanted his older brother back. And for now, the jounin was willing to substitute the position as he silently floated up the stairs, meandering past every squeak and groan in the floorboards he had become so acquainted with.

* * *

"Kakashi-SENSEEEIII!"

By the third yell Sasuke was growling in to his pillow, hoping to suffocate himself in...

...the aroma of flower green and adult musk. Last he checked, he never made his own pillows smell like that. With a disgruntled humph he turned his head, only to choke on a silver anemone. Coughing and swatting at the mass he then rolled on to his back and scowled groggily to the ceiling.

"Kakashi-sensei, cmon! Lemme in!" He knew who that scratchy pubescent and whiny voice belonged to he noted to himself, hand resting on his own rousing heartbeat as he listened to a fist on the door downstairs. "The storm knocked out my power. I need some hot water for my ramen come ON!" Naruto was willing to profess his dilemma to the entire neighborhood.

When the blissful cloudiness of sleep drifted away from his thoughts and cleared them, Sasuke was immediately displeased.

"...That idiot knows where you live, too?" he grumbled to the warm body that reflexively pulled him in by the limbs about his middle, raven-haired youth bombarded with more of that overwhelming smell from its source.

The jounin feigned sleep with closed eyes. Rather, Sasuke didn't make an effort to look for the original unscarred lid opposed to the closed one he had spotted a moment ago. Before he was pulled in to a pale chest developed years beyond himself.

"Beat down every door in Konoha."

Kage Bunshin came in so much handy for guessing games, apparently.

"Naruto!" The last genin of team seven whacked the blond down below across the head. "Don't be so loud!" From here the Uchiha couldn't make out the sputtered and submissive bawling of his rival, but did smirk at just how predictable his comrades were. "Kakashi-sensei, I brought leftovers from breakfast!"

Feeling the curve of lips against his chest, fingers revived in inky strands with a sleepy hum. "Sakura looked me up in the directory," he explained lamely, weariness crackling in his voice obscured by Uchiha scalp and his own mask.

And since the man didn't ask how Sasuke had acquired his address, he didn't tell him. Far too busy with the amazement of how well he had slept. With someone. The last time he had shared a bed with anyone, he had been hiding from the way lightning lit up the gardens as he was bundled away in his on-mission brother's sheets, or on the rare occasion in said brother's arms. There was a hard time grasping that...

...even after what had happened...

...he still wanted to be with someone. Needed someone. An Avenger didn't need anyone, dammit. But it was hard to deny that he was too... content, waking up like this, to be scornful to the fact he had - for once - been the last to accomplish a team-task.

With a displeased breath the younger resolved to find bones in the mass of warm morning-hating jelly he had become, working to sit up.

Firm arms tugged him back down forcing him to level with his cheek in the pillow and confront the perfectly awake, but always-drowsy icy gaze of his teacher. A gaze that looked a little warmer, for some reason.

Already knowing where this was going, the unsettled pre-teen shot his dark eyes elsewhere, the motion sending black bangs careening in to the pillow and masking some of his visage. "...This isn't going to be a regular thing." Not knowing why he should feel so bashful about the subject and knowing full well he didn't have enough control on his voice yet to sound resolute.

"Not if you don't want it to be," the older man replied in his honest, disinterested tone. Which conflicted with the lack of hurry to lift his arms from the boy.

Neither of them bought it, apparently.

"Kakashi-SENSEEIII!"

The tiny Uchiha growled, sitting up as he felt the other move to do the same and fetch their shirts from the floor. Watching overworked sinews permeating the evenly snowy skin disappear under the shirt, and disappearing under his own, Kakashi idly wondered if all Uchihas had it in their blood to only be friendly with those that had kicked their asses.

The fact Sasuke was friendly with anyone proved he was hardly anything like his brother. It added to the unvoiced sorrow he had for his student, that the boy had very little say in how he was living his life. And anger, towards another youth he hadn't seen in years that had doomed an otherwise pleasant and exceptional soul to such a self-annihilating path. With more emotion than he had intended the shirt slid over his head.

Surfacing, the gloomy pallid eye took in the sight of his Top Rookie, who was busy leering at something on the window.

"...Hm?"

"...You're bad with people," the boy stated flatly.

Rarely put-off the jounin was both impressed and annoyed with how his student perpetually managed it. A blink, then a sweatdrop that leaked down the side of his head. "So are you."

What a brilliant comeback. In some sort of victory Sasuke smirked with his eyes and frowned with his mouth. "Mr. Ukki's a horrible name."

"Er--..." Scratching an unsourced itch at the back of his head, he laughed warmly. "I didn't think so."

"That's why you're bad at it."

Almost pouting the jounin aimed his flat browed gaze to the window. "Don't make fun of him just because he can't defend himself."

Another victorious 'hn' from the boy, then making his way off the bed to pursue morning duties down the corridor. Another loud proclamation from below told them Naruto was about ready to make a ladder of bunshins to get to the second floor window if someone didn't hurry up. Or Sakura didn't hit him again.

Thwap.

"Ohiyo, Sakura! Naruto!" cheered the jounin from the window he lifted and peeked the silver bush of his head through, waving down to the pair.

Sakura beamed as she showed off the bundle in her hands and Naruto yelled, "You're late to even answer your door!"

Chuckling wearily the man rubbed the back of his neck with a smile in his eye. "Well you see, that black cat came around again and followed me home. It just now got out of my path."

"YOU LIE!" the pair of them boomed. 


End file.
